PAX 2013: Here's all the news that's worth your time

Hayden Dingman |
Sept. 4, 2013

Everything you need to know about what happened at last week's big gaming convention in Seattle.

PAX Prime, the Comic-Con of the video game industry, occurred this past weekend in Seattle. This year's event was a massive four-day undertaking that spanned the Labor Day weekend, with tens of thousands of fans crammed into the labyrinthine Washington State Convention Center.

For many, this was an opportunity to play the year's most anticipated games or lay hands on the upcoming Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. If you were expecting any big news about the next generation of home consoles at PAX proper, however, Sony and Microsoft were happy to disappoint you.

Still, there were a few notable announcements scattered between the constant Titanfall hype and Twitch streamers. In the next few days (once we get some sleep) we'll also have a rundown of some of the fantastic games—big and small—we saw in Seattle.

For now, here's all the news you need to know from PAX 2013.

Mega Man's spiritual successor On Saturday Keiji Inafune announced he's working on a spiritual successor to the franchise that made him famous: the revered Mega Man.

Known as Mighty No. 9, this is a Mega Man game in everything but name: difficult platforming, 2D-esque art style, and quick combat. Punishing, in other words. The team over at developer Comcept features an "all-star team" of ex-Mega Man devs, so hopefully this will bring some of the magic back to Inafune's robot-battling formula.

The team launched a Kickstarter for the game during Inafune's PAX panel on Saturday, August 31, and by the end of the long weekend the game had already blasted past its $900,000 funding goal.

Gearbox announces two new franchises Gearbox, developer of Borderlands and...well, some other not-as-great-as-Borderlands games, revealed it's currently developing two new franchises for upcoming consoles.

Ryan Davis tribute And while not strictly news, there were a number of events during PAX to commemorate fallen industry figure Ryan Davis of Giant Bomb, who passed away in July.

At the Giant Bomb panel on Saturday night, fans showed their support with a three-minute standing ovation at the start of the show. Then on Sunday night the Cards Against Humanity panel paid tribute to the man, with friends offering video and spoken memories of Davis. Highly recommended viewing if you followed Davis's work in either the GameSpot or Giant Bomb days.

Ultimate Warrior is still Ultimate Warrior Sitting in 2K's booth, playing XCOM: Enemy Within behind closed doors, my eardrums suddenly rang with the sound of an overenthusiastic announcer shouting, "Ultimate Warrior is in the building!" (or something along those lines).